U.S. Government Fostered Ownership of Radio

Running Head : US Government Fostered Ownership of Radio

US GOVERNMENT FOSTERED OWNERSHIP OF RADIO

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US Government Fostered Ownership of Radio

Introduction

Looking into the history of how Radio becomes an important milestone of modern telecommunication , we can easily discover attempts of creating a government monopoly or of converging the power and ownership into a single US-based company . In this , we are trying to briefly summarize the reasons and effects of those efforts and to elaborate shortly on the pros and cons of the efforts and also the

possible alternatives to monopoly Reasons for Monopoly

There are several reasons that can be identified from the environments in which the US radio was experiencing its early development stages . The reasons are

Fear of Foreign Control

The first and most powerful reason was the fear of British monopoly over the world 's radio network . In 1912 , it was apparent at that time that the British government is trying to win the world 's radio network from a company called the British Marconi . This company had a branch in the United States called the American Marconi , which controlled most of the patents in radio broadcasting equipment , in United States . In response of this condition , the US government launched a series of legal attempts to get the control of radio under the US government 's authority . Their publicly stated excuse was to make the best use of radio for war requirements

Wartime Use

Nevertheless , this `excuse ' was actually holding some truth within it During the Word War I , the practice of amateur radio was suspended in to allow undisrupted radio communication between US officers for purposes of war . There were concerns that amateur radio stations would never be allowed to broadcast again in US regions , but in 1919 , the wartime restrictions was officially over and amateur radio waves started to fill US airspaces like never before

Regulating the Industry

The third reason for attempting to design a monopoly over the US radio industry is to regulate the industry and minimize interference and irresponsible broadcasts that generate wide concerns in the US society In 1912 , these concerns was rising due to the interference of military broadcast by amateur radio stations . Furthermore , the sinking of the Titanic on April 15 , 1912 added momentum to the atmosphere and bringing the attention of the US President himself into the matter (Howeth 1963

Effects of Monopoly

There are also several opinions regarding the true effect of government monopoly in United States . The opinions and their reasons are

Positive Effects

Some argued that government 's efforts to create a monopoly in the development of US radio generated positive effects to the industry as a whole . This argument is supported by the fact that when the use of radio is controlled by government authority during the First World War various experiments and new inventions were generated that actually boosted the development of the industry . For instance , after WWI is over , amateur radio stations started to adopt the...